apuszczalowski

I would also have to say no Financially, sure they are in a better place, but money doesn't buy you championships. Just ask teams like the Rangers and Flyers. The last few championship teams weren't built through spending money on FAs, alot of the teams were built through drafting with a couple of additions through trades. The team is not much better then it was back then, still struggling to get to the playoffs, and question marks/holes outside of the goaltending position. @Eleven - If your going to still say that Quinn was making the moves instead of Regier, then its also relevant to say that TP is making the moves instead of Regier. Darcy still can't convince FAs to come here with big money, and needs TP to fly out and beg players to come here to Hockey heaven...........

I do agree that some markets may never be big successes, but many are too quick to want to get rid of those markets without really looking at while they struggle and fail all while forgeting that there are northern teams that struggle too. A team like Phoenix has had issues with poor planning when they built their arena, signing a horrible lease for the team, and issues with ownership that keep fans away and make it harder to make money. Then throw in the inability to put a quality product on the ice and theres nothing to draw fans in. Had Phoenix won the Crosby/Ovechkin sweepstakes, things may have been a bit different because of the draw of getting such a dynamic player. If a new owner is not willing to invest some money into the product on the ice and they go back to being a dormat, then the moving trucks will be on their way in a couple of seasons. If some money is spent and the team gets better, it can create a buzz and start attracting some more fans in. Everyones always on the southern teams for not making money and struggling financially, yet the devils owner right now is struggling financially and begging for investors to help cover bills. The Sabres and Penguins all had to be saved from Bankruptcy, and the Islanders are looking to move because they are struggling in one of the worst arenas in the league right now.

If the league wants to expand and compete with the big boy leagues for TV and sponsorship deals, it needs those teams that everyone wants gone. It will be real tough to get a lucrative TV deal for a sport that only allows teams north of the Mason/Dixon. The point to pushing the game in the southern markets is to try and expand the game, bring more fans into the league. Its not easily done and takes some lean times sometimes to do it. Hockey wasn't exactly thriving in LA prior to Gretzky making it a name, now there are kids playing the game coming from California

Sure, they could IF those owners actually wanted to leave and form their own league, which would require them to try and sign a lucrative TV deal in Canada (Might be tough if the CBC has a contract with the NHL and if theres wording in it that would allow them to have a deal with another league. It would also involve them having to find players that would want to sign on to play in this league. But the biggest would be that those owners would have to disagree with the rest of the owners and want to just keep playing, and if that was the case, there wouldn't be talk of a lockout because they would have agreed to a new CBA already. This isn't Gary Bettman vs Fehr and the NHLPA, Its the Owners (with Gary Bettman as their negotiator/mouthpiece basically) vs the NHLPA (with Fehr as their negotiator/mouthpiece). Gary Bettman and Fehr are listening to what the owners and players want and are using that to negotiate the new deal. They work for their party/side

I would still rather wait 5 hours to get looked at in an emergency room for a non life threatening issue then to walk out of the hospital with a bill that I have to figure out some way to pay.The Canadian system isn't perfect and needs work, but I would take it any day over the US system. Seemd like one of the biggest issues most have is wait times, which can be solved by more healthcare practioners, which seem to be in short demand because they leave to the US for more money.

Those were part of Thursdays trip, Friday was to include the Hospital visit, a Talk at Brock University, and visiting a St. Catharines Hockey school/program with Cody Hodgson IIRC

Well why haven't all of your "Job Creators" receiving their large tax breaks creating more jobs then????

Good old catridge gamesEveryone remembers being a kid and just blowing into the cartridge and system to fix the game and get it working again An experience our children won't be able to experience anymore......

Only problem with your idea is that it works great in theory, but not in the real world. In todays politics, most of the 8 years will just be the current party trying to clean up what teh other party put in place and it would just be a cycle of going back and forth from one extreme to the other The biggest problem is that you need more then just 2 serious parties/sides to chose from to give people alternatives then just one extreme to the other. The other problem, and it seems to be the biggest, is that you need the politicians to put aside their parties when they step into office and do whats right for the country, not whats right for their party and supporters/financial backers first. Neither party is going to get your country back on track if they can't get everyone working together for whats best for everyone. The current state of the country is not a time for either side to act like children and worry about their own interests first. They need to get things fixed together, before they can get back to giving their supporters/financial backers any perks.........

I here they just left the Pie and told the restaurant tehy would be back in a future sometime to decide how to cut it.......... So no one else knows how their date went? Did they pickup their own tabs? Did Daly pay for Fehr or did Fehr pay for Daly? Was it a romantic restaurant? Did they go out afterwards for a carrage ride? Or back to one of their places?

Have you tried checking ebay for the disk drive? Sometimes you can find parts for them at a decent price on there and then you just need someone to do the swap for you (Might even be something you can do with a screwdriver Also, did you try blowing into it? That used to always work to fix the old video game systems :P

Doan doesn't seem to care about playing in a 'Hockey market" though, and there are some players that are happy in smaller markets, or staying with what they are comfortable with

Yup, you should be able ot open up the PS3, unscrew and unplug the old drive and replace with a new one.Is it the dvd drive that won't spin (place where you insert your disk) or is it the harddrive that won't work? either way it shouldn't be a hard fix and most computer places can probably repair it for you for a decent cost

Says the guy who is a fan of Buffalo. with a permanent ownership group in place for the team, they have a chance to turn things around in Phoenix. One of the biggest reasons they were losing money was the original arena lease which is being renegotiated and approved. Without all the "Will they move? Will they stay?" talk every year they can now focus on the team without the NHL in control of it.

Avs make NHL history, taking a title away from Crosby http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=404504 Gabriel Landeskog now named Youngest NHL Captain at the age of 19 I think this starts to show that the Captaincy is more of a reward then an actual position of need. Teams don't really need someone as a captain, its more of a symbol and reward to a player who they feel is one of their best, rather then a position given to the teams leader.

Does it automatically make your team cower when a guy gets too close to your goaltender, or is there a button that puts you into Turtle mode? Also, Is there a setting that you can use to make your players not hustle for the puck when your team is down by alot and just playing out the clock? :nana: If they really want to make the game more realistic, the ratings should fluctuate and randomly go up and down in season mode to simulate players going into slumps, or having hot/cold streaks

2 of those 3 also changed part of their name, Could a name change be on the horizon too? Maybe "The Western New York Sabres of Buffalo"? Or if they are really interested in regionalizing, "The Southern Ontario Sabres of Buffalo and Rochester" I'm just playing Devils advocate to the idea that everything TP does is magic and he is always straight forward and honest. Third Jerseys are a money grab, so are alternate uniforms for holidays/events (green St. patricks Day Stuff, etc). They aren't to keep some guy employed by working on new uniforms and logos, they are to create addition merchandise for the team. Theres nothing wrong with that from a business standpoint. I find it a bit amusing that most seem to assume that TP is a free spender who will spend whatever it takes from his Billions to make a winner, he says less then 2 years ago that he doesn't care about making money from the team and if he needs money "He will just go dig another well", yet in that short period of time he has been working on increasing revenue from the team (Raise ticket prices, 3rd Jerseys, etc.) I think my biggest issue with the proposed new 3rd jersey is that from the explination, it sounds like they are just slightly tweaking the ones they currently wear or going back to the original which is basically the current ones also slightly tweaked.

My point is, he said that he doesn't need the money to run the team, and if he needs money, he just has to drill another well. Unless he was saying that as a a metaphor, that if he needs money for the team he will just drill into another source for bringing in revenue (Jerseys, raising prices, etc.) Third Jerseys are just another way to see more merchandise. Theres no need for them except to get fans to buy more products. Teams only need a home and away jersey. As for changing colors/logos, its the same thing, its a way to increase sales of merchandise and increase revenue. People can argue all they want about the original logo, but I think the team was most successful while wearing the "Goathead" logo (one Cup appearance in it and an ECFs appearance, with Hasek, Drury and Briere Eras mostly during this time). its pretty funny how around here, uniform/logo changes can create more anger then the actual product put on the ice......

The difference between Ennis and Roy fromt eh last couple seasons, yes theres a difference. But Ennis in his first full season with the Sabres and Roy in his first full season with the Sabres i don't know if I would say theres a huge glaring difference. I'm sure you can take a game from one of the former young guys when they came up to the Sabres and find some comparables to Folignos game against Toronto also. C'mon man, TP spares no expense. The problem isn't that the use Palm Pilots that aren't 3G compatible, Its more like Darcy can't stop playing Angry Birds on his new Iphone 5 that TP was able to snag before release, and He was unable to attend the training course TP had for him to learn how to use his Ipad because he was too busy trying to contact Burke in TO to see what they would want to get Timmy Back

Who wouldn't love what they just did. the Red Sox GM was able to find someone even dumber who was willing to take a bunch of bad contracts off their books so they can go back and spend big on this years crop of FAs. The Dodgers are desperate to get back into the mix of being one of the top teams so now they are just throwing money out to get big names to bring people back to the ball park. The Red Sox were lucky that they were able to unload any of those deals and actually get something back for them. What is with these California GMs and the attraction to big contract busts? Dodgers now, Angels taking Vernon Wells from the Jays.......

But its one he has been quoted as saying he wouldn't run as a business because "If I need money, I will just go drill another well"Funny how everyone bashes the Golisano/Quinn regime for being too tight with the purse strings because they ran the team as a business and did so on a tight budget to get them financially stable and out of bankruptcy, and now you still here "this is still a business" when theres an owner with billions involved who throws his money around almost as bad as "Pacman in a Strip club"

So the new third jersey is going to be similar to the current ones they wear? Blue and gold with the original logo, isn't that what they wear now (with a slightly tweaked logo)?

Sorry, had to correct that for you, unless you can given instances that the previous group of younger guys have never shown that show these guys are different. Girgenson has never even laced up skates in the NHL, and your already including him in talks of being a leader.The problem isn't bringing in a strong mentor for these guys, I'm sure everyone here would agree thats what the Sabres ened to do, its the over the top, Sign Doan at all costs mentality around here that is what most disagree with. Doan at a decent price is a no brainer, Doan at a cap hit comparible to some of the NHLs elite is not worth it, unless it more then guarantees that the Sabres will win the cup and he is the last and only piece remaining to turn this team into a cup contender Aren't there only 3 teams that would currently be over the new Cap? If so, its possible that they don't include any provisions to roll back salaries or give those teams relief. it may be the reason why some teams have held back from making huge deals this offseason unless they had the cap room to make them (like the Wild)I would be pretty pissed off as a team GM or Owner if I planned this offseason to be responsible until the new CBA is worked out so that I would not get into cap trouble, while a few provisions get made to bail out teams that decided to go all in like nothing is going to change.

I thought I had seen/heard before of players sharing rooms sometimes for away games. Either way, at the most, thats what, 30-40 rooms 41 nights out of the year?As for the Mall, the other issue is that development and retail is getting away from the "Mall" format and more into 'Strip Malls' where each business is located in a strip of stores with all of their access coming from the outside, instead of inside a main corridor. I think one of the issues is that people don't want to park, get out of their car and walk around inside a building to get to only one store, they want to be able to get in and get out of the store quickly and be on there way (of course this is only my opinion on the matter). And yes, Rinks can be expensive to maintain if they aren't booked up. I know alot of local multi-pad rinks that are struggling to break even or keep ice on all the pads because they don't have the demand to keep them filled. There really has to be a demand for Ice time to keep it profitable, if there is a shortage of rinks in Buffalo, then there shouldn't be a problem filling ice time outside of prime hours. The problem with hotels is that the are something thats needed when there is a demand due to an attraction to bring people to the area. You don't build a hotel because you have the occasional hockey tournament once in a while or a one time event. To keep it from struggling, you need something to bring people to the area year round, and thats the one thing Buffalo is lacking right now. Addining more restaurants and Bars to the area isn't going to bring many more people in to the area, there are plenty of dining and drinking establishments in the area for visitors. This could be the start of some good development, but its not going to be something to bring people to the area, thats still whats needed there

And how many of those guys have actually shown any more drive or competitive fire then what guys like Roy/Pomminstein/Stafford/etc. showed when they came up at that age? Your assuming because some of them played well when they came up that Doan will be able to mould them into leaders, like some thought Drury's presence could do to the last bunch. As for the other comments by everyone, calm down and don't get your panties in a bunch, I'm just having some fun with the over the top hype around here over getting Doan.......